


Independent Variables

by brilliantengineer



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: AU, F/F, Fluff, parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 02:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7871422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilliantengineer/pseuds/brilliantengineer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jillian Holtzmann and Erin Gilbert embark on an even bigger adventure than ghost busting: parenthood. (Not posted in chronological order)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Storks Over Manhattan

The camera’s frame shifts around for a moment, the timestamp in the corner blinking ‘2:38.′ The focus blurs and then sharpens on Holtzmann standing in the lab.

“Oof, there we go. Hi baby! It’s your mom. We’re all counting down the days until you get here. Your mama is the most beautiful person on this whole planet right now, even if she doesn’t think so. Speaking of mama, she really misses busting, she’s been on strictly lab duty for like, six months. But we did it to keep you safe! So there’s that.”

Holtzmann pans the camera angle to the corner of the lab, where there’s a glass chamber the size of a walk-in closet in the corner, outfitted with a bouncy seat, a blanket, and a group of toys. “I wanted to show you the lab today, Patty and Abby helped. We made you your own corner! Everything in here is flame resistant and the glass is tempered. Your mama and I really want you to be here with us. We hope you’ll grow up to be curious about everything you see. That’s a rule: question everything. 

“The biggest question around here right now is your name. Mama and I still haven’t picked one yet. She likes Sophie after Sophie Germain, but I’m not completely sold yet. I think you should be Tesla, but your Aunt Patty seems to think you’ll get beat up for that. So the point is, right now we don’t know. But we’ll figure it out when we meet you, and maybe it’s better like that anyway. 

"Have I mentioned how excited we are yet? WE ARE SO EXCITED! I wish you’d get here already. Your mama does too, but I think it’s because you give her heartburn– Oh! Kevin, say something to the baby.”

Kevin comes into the frame looking puzzled. “’S not a baby. That’s a camera. Hi camera!” He preens in its lens, checking his hair and picking at his teeth.

Holtzmann  turns the camera back on herself. “Uh…ignore that. While I’ve got you here, I want to tell you… I guess what I want to say is, you’re gonna grow up in this world with your two parents and aunts who are really smart and accomplished, but if you don’t end up doing the same thing, that’s okay. Whatever you do with your life, all we care about is that you’re happy. Your mama and I, we’re going to make sure you have whatever you need to be happy. I know I don’t always pay attention. I know your mama can get overbearing at times. But, I want you to know that we both love you from the bottom of our hearts. We can’t wait to watch–”

“Holtz- Holtzmann!” 

“Yeah! In the lab! Aunt Abby,” Holtz rolls her eyes as Abby comes into frame. 

“Her water broke!” 

“Her water– Her wa- It’s coming! You’re coming! OH MY GOD, YOU’RE COMING! ABBY! I’ll go get the car-” 

“Forget that, Patty’s on it, grab the suitcases. You ready to be a mom?” 

The camera focus drops. “I’M GONNA BE A MOM? I’M GONNA BE A MOM!” 

“YOU’RE GONNA BE A MOM!” 

“I’M GONNA BE A MOM! Holy shit, I’m gonna be a mom.” 

Abby points to the camera. "The camera’s still rollin’, buddy.”

Holtzmann’s excitement turns into wide-eyed fear. “Oh, cr– DON’T REPEAT THAT! ERIN?! Erin! I’m coming! Don’t have the baby without me! We’re going to see you soon, baby. I love you!”

**4:09 am**

The camera comes back to life in a dim hospital room. “Hi again–”

“Shhhhhh.”

Holtzmann drops her voice to a whisper. “Hi again. I didn’t get a chance to get you coming into the world on tape. Patty assures me this is a good thing? I’m sure you’ll thank her later. But um. It’s 4 am, and you just got here like, an hour ago. Here you are with mama,” Holtzmann turns the camera onto a sleepy, but happy looking Erin cradling a baby in a yellow blanket.

“You’re perfect in every way,” Erin whispers, kissing the baby’s head.

“Your name is Lise Ada-Marie after Lise Meitner, Ada Lovelace, and Marie Curie. We couldn’t pick just one brilliant woman to name you after, your future is just way too bright to settle on one. Plus, you’re gonna be the cool kid with two hyphens in your name. Hah. We love you so much, Lise. We are smitten, please never change. No wait, maybe get a little bit taller and learn how to talk, I think this partnership will work better if we can come to terms once in a while. Hey, Erin, you want to say anything to Lise?”

“I love you, Lise.” Erin whispers with a sleepy grin.

“I love you, Lise.” Holtzmann echoes. “Sleep tight, baby. We certainly aren’t going to any time soon.”


	2. All-Nighters

The baby cries in the bassinet at the foot of the bed. Erin’s hand flops onto the back of a softly snoring Holtzmann, who’s arm dangles from the edge.

“It’s your turn,” Erin mumbles, half asleep.

Holtzmann opens one bleary eye and notes the alarm clock as it reads 2:13 am in neon green. Normally, this is the hour when she is in her engineering prime, but since Lise was born, everything has changed.

Erin’s hand taps her back half-heartedly again. “Holtz–” she begs.

“I’m up. I’m going.” Holtzmann crawls out from under the covers, her boxers and tank top rumpled as she slips into a silk, black and maroon smoker’s coat. “C’mon, let’s let mama sleep.”

Holtzmann, still half-asleep, shuffles out to the lab, yawning. Her hand slides over the lightswitch, but her eyes scrunch shut under the harsh brightness of fluorescent lights. She immediately switches them off again, but makes her way to the sofa on the far end of the room, bouncing and shushing the baby the whole way. 

“Please tell me this is gonna stop eventually…” she mumbles to the ceiling, plopping down on something hard beneath her. She pulls the offending object out and half-recognizes it as a PKE meter. In a stroke of brilliance, she switches the device on and moves her newborn daughter to the crook of her arm. “Hey, Lise. Check it out, lights. Your favorite.”

The baby’s cries quiet a bit as she takes in the slowly rotating red glow. 

“There we go. I’m so good at this, look at us, Lise. We’re great at this.” Holtz yawns and readjusts, allowing her eyes to close.

Holtzmann jerks awake again when the sun is shining through the windows to Erin jostling her shoulder. “Don’t touch the toaster or the elephant will kill us all!” Realizing where she is, she sits up, bleary eyed and stiff, but thrilled to see the coffee mug in her wife’s hands. 

“I didn’t hear her cry again all night, how did you do that?” Erin asks, trading the coffee for an infant.

Holtz, guzzling the coffee, holds up the PKE meter. “She likes the light.”

“Oh my god, Holtzmann!” Erin gasps. “Could that thing give her mercury poisoning or something? Does it give off radiation?” She holds the baby away from it.

“No. Maybe. Probably not. Look, I’ll make a mobile. We can rig it over her crib and sleep for centuries. Is there more of this?” She holds out her mug, her eyes stinging from exhaustion.

Erin jiggles Lise on her shoulder, standing by the biggest window where the light makes her hair look bronze and shiny. Holtzmann gets up, stretching, and goes to the hot plate in the corner where the pot of coffee sits on the warm setting. She swaps her mug for the coffee pot and watches Erin from behind while she sings to their daughter. Erin catches her from the corner of her eye and holds out a hand for her to join.

Holtzmann abandons the coffee and goes to the window, wrapping an arm around her wife’s waist. “You’re good at this mom thing, Gilbert.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Erin smiles.

Holtz leans over and kisses her, then the baby’s head. “I love you.”

And even though she’s standing there, she can almost see what they look like standing there, the three of them. A family. Just like the one she always hoped she would have.


	3. The Science Fair

“Okay you guys. Game faces,” Erin takes a deep breath in through her nose. “We’re going to go in there and it’s going to be tough. We’re going to see a lot of nightmare inducing stuff. It could get ugly. We’re talking eruptions, maybe a couple explosions. There’s no telling what could go wrong. But we’re prepared for anything, right?” She turns to look at Holtzmann in the passenger seat and then to the back where her eight year old daughter is squished between Patty and Abby.

“Science fair day. The very name evokes fear in both parents and children alike. But not us. Oh no. Not this family. We celebrate this day like Christmas. We celebrate the contributions of young minds--especially our favorite one--and their pursuits to further their own learning. We--”

“Are going to be late, wrap it up Napoleon,” Abby says.

“Okay, ground rules. 1.) Good sportsmanship only. Science fairs aren’t just about winning, it’s about learning and having fun. We’re all winners if we learn and have fun. 2.) No matter what place we take home, we did our best and as long as we did that, it’s good enough.”

“Thirty seconds before I get out of this car with your kid and never come back, Erin,” Patty threatens.

“I’m getting there!” she protests. “And finally. Under no circumstances is my wife allowed to be left alone.”

“Whaaaaaaat?” Holtzmann looks melodramatically incredulous.

“I still haven’t forgotten last year when you singed a girl’s hair by tampering with her experiment. Sabotage will not be tolerated.”

“Pffft. I was not responsible for that.”  
  
“Lise almost got banned from participating this year because of that, Holtz.”

Holtzmann rolls her eyes. “Please, they never actually confirmed anything, don’t be so dramatic.”

“No one had to confirm anything. You said ‘Hey kid, watch this,’ and set her bean sprouts on fire.”

“That was an accident and you can’t prove it wasn’t.”

“OH-KAY, we’re going inside, whenever you two want to stop squabbling,” Abby cut in, grabbing Lise’s hand and the project bag before pushing their way out.

“I mean it, Holtzmann. Don’t ruin this for her,” Erin points as Holtzmann is getting out of the car.

“I would never. I’m offended by the mere insinuation.”

They make their way into the gym at Spence where parents and children alike have flocked to set up tri-fold boards and card tables. Among the sea, they find Lise, Abby, and Patty working on a table setup. Beside them, another little girl and her mother are setting up a large volcano almost as big as the girl herself. Holtzmann squints critically, looking for some kind of a design flaw.

“Volcano, huh? We did that one in first grade. It’s a fun one. Oldie but a goodie,” Erin smiles.

Both the mother and the daughter glare at her and resume their setup. Erin gives Lise a little nudge that their daughter is all-too acquainted with. “It looks really good, Veronica.”

“Of course it does,” Veronica says matter-of-factly. “First place projects always do.”

“We did some pretty advanced stuff this year, not that we like to toot our own horn or anything,” Holtzmann points out, squeezing Lise’s shoulder. 

Veronica glances at their display with disinterest. “That looks  _stupid_.”

Holtzmann takes one step forward before Erin catches her. 

“It’s an experiment about sound in outer space,” Lise pipes up. “It’s really fascinating actually--”

“I don’t care,” Veronica says turning back to glue tiny model trees to the base of her volcano.

“Well,” Erin lets an uncomfortable laugh loose, followed by an awkward moment of silence. “Good luck.”

A short while later, Erin has dispatched Abby and Holtzmann to go help Lise into the Sally Ride costume they made for the big occasion. Patty is sent to scope out the competition, and Erin is putting the stars and other finishing touches on an impressive display. She keeps making furtive glances at Veronica’s mother and trying to decide whether or not she thinks Lise has a chance to beat her.

“Your daughter’s...um. Pretty competitive, huh?”

“Veronica’s a winner. She would need to have some competition in order to be competitive.”

“Isn’t that a little...? Elitist? For an elementary school science fair, I mean,” Erin asks.

“On the contrary. Veronica is going places. Do you have any idea how hard it is for women in STEM careers?”

“Yes, actually I do. I have a Ph.D. in Particle Physics. My wife has a doctorate in engineering, so I suppose you could say we’re well-acquainted with the issue.”

That seems to keep her quiet for a moment, but she never takes her eyes off of Erin while she works. Finally, “Well. That explains why your daughter is so...peculiar.”

Erin’s jaw clenches. “Excuse me?”

“No father figure in her life? Children need two parents, you know. Very important to their development.”

“She has two parents,” Erin says so darkly it almost sounds like a threat.

“Two mothers. Not two parents. Anyway, I hate to cut this riveting conversation short, but I need to go find my daughter. Good luck.”

Erin feels rage and wrath boiling inside of her in ways she hasn’t felt in years. She scours the room over the tops of boards and finds exactly what she’s looking for three tables down in the form of a bottle. “I need to borrow this for a second, sorry. Paper cut. I’ll bring it right back,” she assures the parent and runs back to the volcano, dumping a quarter of the bottle into Veronica’s volcano before returning it and searching for her friends.

Holtzmann, Abby, and Lise return, and eventually Patty does too. 

“Nothing to worry about in here, baby girl. You got this,” Patty smiles, hugging the little girl.

“The costume is so cute, Erin, you guys did a great job,” Abby says.

“Well, we better get into place, the judges will be coming around soon,” Erin clears her throat. Holtzmann gives her a coy, suspicious look. 

“What’d you do?” Holtz whispers as the others prepare.

“Nothing. I didn’t do anything.” Erin clears her throat again, avoiding her wife’s eyes.

“Okay,” Holtzmann says, but her suspicious little smirk remains all the way through Lise’s presentation. They listen intently through Veronica’s too, but mainly just to gauge the quality of the presentation. Erin trains her eyes on Lise’s experiment setup while Veronica prepares her volcano for eruption.

What happens next is not an eruption, but a strong effluvium. Holtzmann’s head immediately jerks in Erin’s direction, her mouth agape in a stunned smile. A science teacher acting as a judge calls for the gym to be evacuated immediately until the volcano can be successfully neutralized. Out on the playground, the children carry on as if nothing has happened. Lise plays with Abby and Patty on a merry go round.

“You broke rule number three.” Holtzmann says, giving Erin a nudge.

“No I didn’t.” Erin shakes her head.

“How’d you do it? What’d you do? Tell me. You have to tell me, I’m your wife,” she looks giddy.

“Nothing you can prove.” Erin insists.

“I’m holding this against you for the rest of our lives.”

“Yeah, well. You don’t get to mess with a Ghostbuster--or her family--and expect to win.”

Two hours later when the judging finally happens, Lise is there to collect a first place blue ribbon while Veronica stands on stage on the verge of tears with a purple one as an honorable mention. Lise tells her ‘Better luck next year,’ and skips offstage, jumping to high five Patty when she returns to them.

That night, at the dinner table amongst a smorgasbord of Chinese food, Lise is given a chemistry lesson on common household cleaners and why you should never, under any circumstances, combine bleach and vinegar.


	4. Homesick

"Patty, take that side, Erin, take that side, Holtzmann--”

“I’m on gadgets.”

“You’re on gadgets, right.” Abby wa tches the specter moving up around the ceiling. “Okay. We’re gonna bag this puppy up nice and smooth.”

They get into position, fire up the proton packs on Abby’s signal, and prepare for an easy catch...

Until a cell phone rings.

Erin’s eyes go wide. She looks at Holtzmann and then back at the ghost, who has suddenly noticed it isn’t alone.

“Can’t you shut that thing off?” Abby hisses.

“Uh...” she pulls the phone out of her pocket and grabs Holtzmann’s arm. “Mom card. Be right back!” She drags Holtzmann out into the hall with her.

“Erin, you can’t mom-card during a bust!” Abby shouts as she pulls the door shut.

“Be right back, promise!” Erin answers her cell phone’s video calling to see the severe looking Dr. Rebecca Gorin poised at a desk as if she’s preparing to give an address. Holtzmann smashes herself into frame behind Erin.

“Hey Doc,” she smiles. “How is everything going?”

“Oh good, good. I have to say, Jillian, your child is truly exceptional. Truly.”

“Thanks, we made it ourselves,” Erin lets out a breathy, awkward laugh.

“I know,” Gorin deadpans. 

“So uh, where is our favorite little nucleus?” Holtz asks.

“Lise, dear. Your mothers are on the phone.”

A tiny, brown-haired head runs into frame. She helps herself up into Dr. Goran’s lap, tossing a screwdriver on the counter first. She’s clutching a tiny circuit board and wearing her own little ‘screw you’ pin fastened to her sweater. 

“Hi sweetheart!” Erin beams, thrilled to see Lise’s face for the first time in days.

“Hi mama!” Lise waves. “Hi mommy!”

“Hi baby! What’d you make?”

“Cricket board!” She clutches the piece in her four year old hands like a blue ribbon prize.

“ _Circuit_  board,” Dr. Gorin corrects her.

“I know. But crickets are important, too.”

“Crickets are important too, Doc,” Holtzmann raises her eye brows.

“When are you coming home?” Lise sets her circuit board down on the table in front of them. 

“Soon, sweetheart, I promise. Our flight is tomorrow and we’re leaving no matter what,” Erin says. This is the longest and furthest they’ve ever been away and her heart is beginning to ache from it. “We miss you so much.”

“Yes we do and we can’t wait to hear all about what you learned with Dr. Gorin--” Holtzmann adds before a crash and a roar from the doors behind them. “I should get back in there,” she looks at Erin, biting her lip.

“We were in the middle of something when you called, I’m sorry. We have to cut this short, but we’ll call later when we’re packing up at the hotel,” Erin says.

“We love you baby! Blow us a kiss for good luck?” Holtz peeks into the room before turning back to the camera in time to see Lise blow a kiss. “Thanks again, Doc.”

“Of course.”

“Erin, we gotta go.”

Erin blows a kiss too. “Bye sweetheart. We’ll see you soon.” The call gets disconnected. Erin’s eyes start to water and she sniffs a bit, trying to regain composure. 

Holtz grabs her hand and drags her back inside where they duck behind a sofa next to Patty and Abby.

“TOOK YA LONG ENOUGH!” Abby bellows over the roaring of the ghost looming around above him.

“Sorry, it was Lise,” Holtzmann says. “What’s the plan of attack?”

“It was better before Erin poked the sleeping bear,” Patty deadpans.

It’s enough to push Erin over the edge. “I wanna go home. I wanna go home right now.” The tears are streaming down her face. “I miss my baby.”

“For ghost’s sake, get it together, will ya? The sooner we bust this thing the sooner we can get out of here.” Abby checks the status of things over her shoulder. “Patty and I are going to make a run for the other side of the room. Get the trap ready, we’re going to bag this bad boy up and take out the trash.”

There is a count to three before they sprint to the other side of the room. Holtzmann powers up her proton wand and switches Erin’s on too before crawling over beside her. “I miss her too, babe, I really do, but we have to pull it together real quick, okay? We gotta do our job just really fast and I promise we can go back to the hotel, pack the bags, and call the airline for the earliest possible flight.” She uses her thumb to smudge the tears on Erin’s cheeks dry. “Time to rock and roll.”

Holtzmann grabs Erin’s hand, yanks her to her feet, and deploys the trap. 

They barely manage to secure the ghost, but as promised, they do and head back to the hotel.

That night, Erin is watching Holtzmann sleep while Patty and Abby snore lightly in the bed next to theirs. “Bean?” she asks.

“Hmm?”

“Let’s never go away like this again.”

“Okay, Garfield,” Holtz mumbles, using the pet name she knows is Erin’s least favorite.

“I miss her bedroom down the hall from us. And her little feet in the morning. I miss our bed and our hallway where she runs every morning to wake us up.” 

“We’ll be home soon, babe, just get some sleep,” Holtz yawns and stretches, pulling Erin in tighter and hugging her close until their little hotel room feels a little more like home.


	5. Civil Disobedience

Erin pins the last of the stuffed tail feathers into Lise’s turkey costume while she bounces on her toes for the umpteenth time. Erin pushes a heavy hand down on her shoulder and pulls another safety pin out from between her teeth. “Lise Holtzmann-Gilbert if you do not hold still, you’re going to get poked.”

“Sorry, mama,” nine year old Lise sighs and tries to be still. She fidgets with the buttons on the front of her costume’s pilgrim collar instead.

“Remember to smile like Miss Cassidy said.”

“I know, mama,” she huffs, annoyed.

“I still don’t understand why the turkey has be smiling, they’re going to cook her and share her with the Native Americans. …Or is it the other way around? I’m still not clear on who brought what to the table,” Holtzmann says, holding the feathers in place for Erin to pin.

“Does it matter? The pilgrims and the Native Americans didn’t eat turkey. There wasn’t even a big, one-day feast, we were there for weeks. And anyway, it’s a holiday that was created to celebrate genocide. Pilgrims executed over 700 people, mom.”  
“Has Aunt Patty been giving you history lessons again?” Erin asks, looking up at Holtzmann with a scowl.

“Yeah, when we took the Patriot Walking Tour two weeks ago,” Lise says, bouncing on her toes again.

Erin turns her around and brushes Lise’s bangs back into the hood of her costume before pulling out her phone. “Smile you two,”

Holtz leans forward and rests her chin on Lise’s head, letting her arms drop at Lise’s sides before she makes a face.

“Okay, mom and I are going to go sit in the audience. Break a leg!” Erin grabbed Holtz’s hand as Lise ran to get in line. She waved a quilted wing with a grin.

“No more field trips with Patty,” Erin says when they’re out of earshot. 

“It’s educational. She’s ahead of her grade anyway. If she doesn’t learn anything new, she’s going to start getting bored,” Holtzmann reminds her wife, taking her hand.

“I just don’t want her to get into trouble at school.”

“Cross that bridge when we get there,” Holtzmann says as they reach the row of seats reserved for them. “After you.” 

They crawl in over the legs of other parents in the auditorium row until they reach the middle where Abby, Patty, and Rebecca Gorin are seated. Holtzmann taps the father beside her on the shoulder as the kids walk out onstage and asks “Which one is yours?”

“She’s the third pilgrim from the left,” he says with a proud smile. “Which one is yours?”

“Big, fat Turkey. Dead center,” Holtzmann says, and whoops like she’s at a rock concert as the piano starts up. The parent behind her makes a shushing noise.

Erin pulls out her camera as they start to sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and grins through it as if she’s trying to remind Lise to smile (she doesn’t).

The pilgrim on Lise’s left steps forward to talk about Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean blue while the girl dressed as a Native American on the right talks about how “her people” were kind and welcoming to the colonists. Holtz and Erin both look at Patty when she guffaws at the inaccuracy.

“What? Man, they don’t teach these kids anything. I thought this was supposed to be a rich kid school, y'all should get your money back.”

Erin gives her a stern look and turns her attention back to the performance. They all see Lise rolling her eyes as the story continues.

“We made a treaty of peace–” the Native Girl and the Pilgrim girl step forward in front of Lise and extend their hands to shake, but Lise interrupts, pushing past them.

“Stop! This is wrong, it’s the wrong story. It’s not true.” 

The other children stand in stunned silence unsure of what to do, and Mrs. Sherman, the theatre and music teacher in the wings can be heard hissing something incoherent from the wings.

“Over seven hundred native lives were stolen in the days before the feast. Men, women, AND children. The colonists burned the village to the ground and celebrated their victorious bloodshed with a feast–not to give thanks to the Natives who had given generously, but to glorify this heinous crime against humanity. And hundreds of years later, we are  _still_  glorifying this heinous crime with cute little pilgrim motifs on paper plates and stuffing ourselves to excess because of this brutal tradition.” 

Mrs. Sherman steps out to haul her off the stage and the only thing in the room is deafening silence. 

Patty and Holtzmann are on their feet almost before Erin realizes–both applauding and whooping in a room that is still as silent as death. Abby applauds conceding the little girl’s courage to stand up and speak the truth while Dr. Gorin manages an awkward clap.

“THAT’S MY KID!” Holtzmann shouts for the room to hear while Erin is trying frantically to get her to sit down and shut up.

The piano starts up again while a door behind them opens and the entire team is escorted out and down to the principal’s office for a discussion on appropriate etiquette at Spence functions.

**Author's Note:**

> This was featured in my mini fluffs too, but it seemed right to start this one off here.


End file.
